Yusra Ribhi Shawar
Biographic Data
| ID | 3455258 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Yusra Ribhi Shawar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Yusra Ribhi |
| FAMILY NAME | Shawar |
| SIGNATURE | SHAWAR Y R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Johns Hopkins University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9539-0341 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Prioritizing rehabilitation in Pakistan’s health system: A qualitative policy analysis
Rehabilitation, is a neglected domain in Pakistan’s health system. There are insufficient financial and human resources to address the unmet needs. Despite the increasing demand for rehabilitation and assistive technology (AT) and implications for improving health inequities, it receives little political attention. This analysis identifies the factors that shape the prioritization of rehabilitation in Pakistan’s national health system. We conduct…
Do global health networks facilitate innovation, learning and sharing? A qualitative analysis of the Quality-of-Care Network in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda
The Quality-of-Care Network (QCN), launched by WHO and partners, links global and national actors across several countries to improve maternal and newborn health. We conducted a prospective qualitative study to examine how QCN in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda facilitated learning, sharing, and innovation within and between network countries. We conducted 227 key informant interviews with QCN actors at global, national, and facility leve…
Political factors shaping national systems of care for orphans and vulnerable children in low-income countries: Scoping review and framework
The political economy of adolescent mental health in Kenya
Adolescent mental health remains a critical yet under-prioritized issue in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) like Kenya, where resource limitations, stigma, and systemic barriers hinder access to care. While policies and strategies such as Kenya's Mental Health Action Plan (2021–2025) exist on paper, their implementation is constrained by limited resources and a weak mental health service delivery infrastructure. This qualitative descripti…
Introduction to the special issue on the governance of national care systems for orphans and vulnerable children in low-income countries
The governance of national care systems for orphans and vulnerable children in Cambodia, Uganda, Zambia and other low and formerly low-income countries: Findings and implications
The evolution of priority for the care of orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia
Comparing priority received by global health issues: A measurement framework applied to tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and dengue fever
INTRODUCTION: The relative priority received by issues in global health agendas is subjected to impressionistic claims in the absence of objective methods of assessment of priority. To build an approach for conducting structured assessments of comparative priority health issues receive, we expand the public arenas model (2021) and offer a framework for future assessments of health issue priority in global and national health agendas. METHODS: We …
How to evaluate a multi-country implementation-focused network: Reflections from the Quality of Care Network (QCN) evaluation
Learning about how to evaluate implementation-focused networks is important as they become more commonly used. This research evaluated the emergence, legitimacy and effectiveness of a multi-country Quality of Care Network (QCN) aiming to improve maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) outcomes. We examined the QCN global level, national and local level interfaces in four case study countries. This paper presents the evaluation team’s reflection…
Effectiveness of a multi-country implementation-focused network on quality of care: Delivery of interventions and processes for improved maternal, newborn and child health outcomes
The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (QCN) aims to work through learning, action, leadership and accountability. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of QCN in these four areas at the global level and in four QCN countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda. This mixed method evaluation comprised 2–4 iterative rounds of data collection between 2019–2022, involving stakeholder interviews, hospita…
Factors shaping network emergence: A cross-country comparison of quality of care networks in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda
The Quality-of-Care Network (QCN) was conceptualized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global partners to facilitate learning on and improve quality of care for maternal and newborn health within and across low and middle-income countries. However, there was significant variance in the speed and extent to which QCN formed in the involved countries. This paper investigates the factors that shaped QCN’s differential emergence in Bang…
Evaluating theory of change to improve the functioning of the network for improving quality of care for maternal, newborn and child health
In 2017, WHO and global partners launched ‘The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health’ (QCN) seeking to reduce in-facility maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirth by 50% in health facilities by 2022. We explored how the QCN theory of change guided what actually happened over 2018–2022 in order to understand what worked well, what did not, and to ultimately describe the consequences of QCN activities. We ap…
How integration of refugees into national health systems became a global priority: A qualitative policy analysis
The past decade has seen a substantial reframing of refugee integration, along with increased financing sources and increased collaboration, explains this shift towards their integration into health systems. However, despite the emergence of integration as a global political priority, the extent to which efforts around integration have translated into action at the national level remains uncertain
The emergence and regression of political priority for refugee integration into the Jordanian health system: An analysis using the Kingdon’s multiple streams model
This case study underscores the dynamic nature of policymaking and the challenge of sustaining government commitment to the right to health among refugees. Our analysis has important implications for advocates seeking to advance and maintain momentum for the integration of refugees into national health systems
Publishing priorities in global health: A framework and empirical analysis
Though vital to health policymaking processes, little is known about the distribution of attention to issues global health journals focus on or their alignment with commitments to health equity. We developed a new framework and methods to help address these analytical gaps. We used content analysis to systematically identify and novel methods to measure attention to themes, subthemes and geographies represented in more than 2,000 research article…
Shifting patterns and competing explanations for infectious disease priority in global health agenda setting arenas
The highly decentralized nature of global health governance presents significant challenges to conceptualizing and systematically measuring the agenda status of diseases, injuries, risks and other conditions contributing to the collective disease burden. An arenas model for global health agenda setting was recently proposed to help address these challenges. Further developing the model, this study aims to advance more robust inquiry into how and …
Understanding resilience, self-reliance and increasing country voice: A clash of ideologies in global health
BACKGROUND: 'Resilience', 'self-reliance' and 'increasing country voice' are widely used terms in global health. However, the terms are understood in diverse ways by various global health actors. We analyse how these terms are understood and why differences in understanding exist. METHODS: Drawing on scholarship concerning ideology, framing and power, we employ a case study of a USAID-sponsored suite of awards called MOMENTUM. Applying a meta-eth…
Influences on policy-formulation, decision-making, organisation and management for maternal, newborn and child health in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda: The roles and legitimacy of a multi-co…
The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (QCN) is intended to facilitate learning, action, leadership and accountability for improving quality of care in member countries. This requires legitimacy—a network’s right to exert power within national contexts. This is reflected, for example, in a government’s buy-in and perceived ownership of the work of the network. During 2019–2022 we conducted iterative round…
Individual interactions in a multi-country implementation-focused quality of care network for maternal, newborn and child health: A social network analysis
The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (QCN) was established to build a cross-country platform for joint-learning around quality improvement implementation approaches to reduce mortality. This paper describes and explores the structure of the QCN in four countries and at global level. Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), this cross-sectional study maps the QCN networks at global level and in four countrie…
Opportunities to sustain a multi-country quality of care network: Lessons on the actions of four countries Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda
The Quality of Care Network (QCN) is a global initiative that was established in 2017 under the leadership of WHO in 11 low-and- middle income countries to improve maternal, newborn, and child health. The vision was that the Quality of Care Network would be embedded within member countries and continued beyond the initial implementation period: that the Network would be sustained. This paper investigated the experience of actions taken to sustain…
Why ‘elevating country voice’ is not decolonizing global health: A frame analysis of in-depth interviews
Recent calls for global health decolonization suggest that addressing the problems of global health may require more than ‘elevating country voice’. We employed a frame analysis of the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framings of both discourses and analyzed the implications of convergence or divergence of these frames for global health practice and scholarship. We used two major sources of data–a review of literature and in-depth intervi…
Global priority for the care of orphans and other vulnerable children: Transcending problem definition challenges
BACKGROUND: Tens of millions of children lack adequate care, many having been separated from or lost one or both parents. Despite the problem's severity and its impact on a child's lifelong health and wellbeing, the care of vulnerable children-which includes strengthening the care of children within families, preventing unnecessary family separation, and ensuring quality care alternatives when reunification with the biological parents is not poss…
Prioritizing rehabilitation in low- and middle-income country national health systems: A qualitative thematic synthesis and development of a policy framework
This framework can support stakeholders in identifying the key components impeding prioritization for rehabilitation across different national contexts. This is a crucial step for ultimately better advancing the issue on national policy agendas and improving equity in access to rehabilitation services
Frames of self-reliance: An analysis of evolving international development discourse
Self-reliance has been advanced by policy actors as an aspirational objective by and for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with evolution in framing over time. Most recently, it has been advanced by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in an organisational strategy titled the Journey to Self-Reliance (J2SR). This paper identifies why self-reliance has evolved over time, how actors have supported its use, and implications for…
Power dynamics and health initiative design as determinants of peacebuilding: A case study of the Syrian conflict
Peace-through-health has emerged as a promising concept but with variable evidence of success. Cooptation of health initiatives in conflict is believed to be a major challenge undermining peacebuilding potential. We examine the role that existing power structures and health initiative characteristics play at various levels of a conflict in peacebuilding outcomes. Using the Syrian conflict as a case study, we assess healthcare initiatives’ charact…
What role can health policy and systems research play in supporting responses to Covid-19 that strengthen socially just health systems
To say that we live in turbulent times is a massive understatement. COVID-19 ruthlessly exposes the fault lines of health services and systems, and the responses put in place to prevent its spread or mitigate its effects may affect people more than the actual infection. The outbreak in Wuhan quickly grew to a pandemic that has affected countries and regions all over the world in many, and as of yet, little understood ways. This is a global infect…
The evolution of priority for the care of orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia
Generating global political priority for urban health: The role of the urban health epistemic community
Over the past decade there has been much discussion of the challenges posed by rapid urbanization in the developing world; yet the health of the urban poor, and especially those residing in low- and middle-income countries, continues to receive little political priority in most developing countries and at the global level. This research applies social science scholarship and a public policy analytical framework to assess the factors that have cha…
Introduction to the special issue on the governance of national care systems for orphans and vulnerable children in low-income countries
Variable Implementation of Sexuality Education in Three Nigerian States
In 2003, Nigeria adopted the Family Life and HIV Education (FLHE) sexuality education curriculum. Our analysis interrogates variation in sub‐national implementation. We conducted 52 interviews with persons knowledgeable about the curriculum in three states—Kano, Lagos, and Niger—and reviewed publications on FLHE. In Kano, the socio‐cultural context impeded implementation, but the persistence of innovative local champions resulted in some success.…
Generating global political priority for urban health: The role of the urban health epistemic community
Over the past decade there has been much discussion of the challenges posed by rapid urbanization in the developing world; yet the health of the urban poor, and especially those residing in low- and middle-income countries, continues to receive little political priority in most developing countries and at the global level. This research applies social science scholarship and a public policy analytical framework to assess the factors that have cha…
Variable Implementation of Sexuality Education in Three Nigerian States
In 2003, Nigeria adopted the Family Life and HIV Education (FLHE) sexuality education curriculum. Our analysis interrogates variation in sub‐national implementation. We conducted 52 interviews with persons knowledgeable about the curriculum in three states—Kano, Lagos, and Niger—and reviewed publications on FLHE. In Kano, the socio‐cultural context impeded implementation, but the persistence of innovative local champions resulted in some success.…
The World Bank
The World Bank, one of the largest global health funders, continues to deny a formal legal obligation for human rights. Internal constraints limit the Bank’s ability to do so, since its Articles of Agreement explicitly forbid it from interfering in a country’s internal political affairs, making it unclear whether human rights risk management is within the institution’s mandate. This stands in contrast to the institution’s commitment to human righ…
International norms and the politics of sexuality education in Nigeria
BACKGROUND: Proponents have promoted sexuality education as a means of empowering adolescents, yet it has been thwarted in many low and middle-income countries. Nigeria represents an exception. Despite social opposition, the government in 1999 unexpectedly approved sexuality education policy. Since then, implementation has advanced, although efficacy has differed across states. We draw on theory concerning international norm diffusion to understa…
Prioritising sexuality education in Mississippi and Nigeria: The importance of local actors, policy windows and creative strategy
Mississippi and Nigeria are two socially conservative places unlikely to prioritise sexuality education. Nonetheless, Mississippi passed a bill in 2011 mandating all school districts to offer sexuality education, and Nigeria approved a national sexuality education curriculum in 2001. To identify the factors that drove the process of prioritisation of sexuality education in each context, we conducted more than 70 semi-structured interviews with no…
Gender equality and gender norms: Framing the opportunities for health
A future for the world's children? A WHO–Unicef–Lancet Commission
Despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over recent decades, today's children face an uncertain future. Climate change, ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices threaten the health and future of children in every country. In 2015, the world's countries agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet nearly 5 years later, few countries ha…
Political challenges to prioritizing gender in global health organisations
BACKGROUND: Many global health organisations have adopted formal strategies to integrate gender in their programming. In practice, few prioritise the issue. Institutions with considerable global power therefore largely overlook fundamental drivers of adverse health outcomes: gender inequality and harmful gender norms. We analyse the factors shaping attention to gender in organisations involved in global health governance. METHODS: Drawing on scho…
What role can health policy and systems research play in supporting responses to Covid-19 that strengthen socially just health systems
To say that we live in turbulent times is a massive understatement. COVID-19 ruthlessly exposes the fault lines of health services and systems, and the responses put in place to prevent its spread or mitigate its effects may affect people more than the actual infection. The outbreak in Wuhan quickly grew to a pandemic that has affected countries and regions all over the world in many, and as of yet, little understood ways. This is a global infect…
Understanding factors impacting global priority of emergency care: A qualitative policy analysis
INTRODUCTION: The high burden of emergency medical conditions has not been met with adequate financial and political prioritisation especially in low and middle-income countries. We examined the factors that have shaped the priority of global emergency care and highlight potential responses by emergency care advocates. METHODS: We conducted semistructured interviews with key experts in global emergency care practice, public health, health policy …
The rise and fall of global health issues: An arenas model applied to the Covid-19 pandemic shock
BACKGROUND: The global health agenda is ill-defined as an analytical construct, complicating attempts by scholars and proponents to make claims about the agenda status of issues. We draw on Kingdon's definition of the agenda and Hilgartner and Bosk's public arenas model to conceptualize the global health agenda as those subjects or problems to which collectivities of actors operating nationally and globally are paying serious attention at any giv…
Interrogating the World Bank’s role in global health knowledge production, governance, and finance
Power dynamics and health initiative design as determinants of peacebuilding: A case study of the Syrian conflict
Peace-through-health has emerged as a promising concept but with variable evidence of success. Cooptation of health initiatives in conflict is believed to be a major challenge undermining peacebuilding potential. We examine the role that existing power structures and health initiative characteristics play at various levels of a conflict in peacebuilding outcomes. Using the Syrian conflict as a case study, we assess healthcare initiatives’ charact…
School district choice of sexuality education curriculum in Mississippi
In 2011, the US state of Mississippi mandated its school districts to adopt a sexuality education curriculum. Approximately half of districts chose a more comprehensive abstinence-plus curriculum over an abstinence-only curriculum. To understand this outcome, we conducted a logistic regression analysis of school district curriculum choice among Mississippi’s school districts using data from 2012 when districts made the initial curricular decision…
Understanding resilience, self-reliance and increasing country voice: A clash of ideologies in global health
BACKGROUND: 'Resilience', 'self-reliance' and 'increasing country voice' are widely used terms in global health. However, the terms are understood in diverse ways by various global health actors. We analyse how these terms are understood and why differences in understanding exist. METHODS: Drawing on scholarship concerning ideology, framing and power, we employ a case study of a USAID-sponsored suite of awards called MOMENTUM. Applying a meta-eth…
Influences on policy-formulation, decision-making, organisation and management for maternal, newborn and child health in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda: The roles and legitimacy of a multi-co…
The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (QCN) is intended to facilitate learning, action, leadership and accountability for improving quality of care in member countries. This requires legitimacy—a network’s right to exert power within national contexts. This is reflected, for example, in a government’s buy-in and perceived ownership of the work of the network. During 2019–2022 we conducted iterative round…
Individual interactions in a multi-country implementation-focused quality of care network for maternal, newborn and child health: A social network analysis
The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (QCN) was established to build a cross-country platform for joint-learning around quality improvement implementation approaches to reduce mortality. This paper describes and explores the structure of the QCN in four countries and at global level. Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), this cross-sectional study maps the QCN networks at global level and in four countrie…
Opportunities to sustain a multi-country quality of care network: Lessons on the actions of four countries Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda
The Quality of Care Network (QCN) is a global initiative that was established in 2017 under the leadership of WHO in 11 low-and- middle income countries to improve maternal, newborn, and child health. The vision was that the Quality of Care Network would be embedded within member countries and continued beyond the initial implementation period: that the Network would be sustained. This paper investigated the experience of actions taken to sustain…
Why ‘elevating country voice’ is not decolonizing global health: A frame analysis of in-depth interviews
Recent calls for global health decolonization suggest that addressing the problems of global health may require more than ‘elevating country voice’. We employed a frame analysis of the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framings of both discourses and analyzed the implications of convergence or divergence of these frames for global health practice and scholarship. We used two major sources of data–a review of literature and in-depth intervi…
Global priority for the care of orphans and other vulnerable children: Transcending problem definition challenges
BACKGROUND: Tens of millions of children lack adequate care, many having been separated from or lost one or both parents. Despite the problem's severity and its impact on a child's lifelong health and wellbeing, the care of vulnerable children-which includes strengthening the care of children within families, preventing unnecessary family separation, and ensuring quality care alternatives when reunification with the biological parents is not poss…
Prioritizing rehabilitation in low- and middle-income country national health systems: A qualitative thematic synthesis and development of a policy framework
This framework can support stakeholders in identifying the key components impeding prioritization for rehabilitation across different national contexts. This is a crucial step for ultimately better advancing the issue on national policy agendas and improving equity in access to rehabilitation services
Frames of self-reliance: An analysis of evolving international development discourse
Self-reliance has been advanced by policy actors as an aspirational objective by and for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with evolution in framing over time. Most recently, it has been advanced by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in an organisational strategy titled the Journey to Self-Reliance (J2SR). This paper identifies why self-reliance has evolved over time, how actors have supported its use, and implications for…
Comparing priority received by global health issues: A measurement framework applied to tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and dengue fever
INTRODUCTION: The relative priority received by issues in global health agendas is subjected to impressionistic claims in the absence of objective methods of assessment of priority. To build an approach for conducting structured assessments of comparative priority health issues receive, we expand the public arenas model (2021) and offer a framework for future assessments of health issue priority in global and national health agendas. METHODS: We …
How to evaluate a multi-country implementation-focused network: Reflections from the Quality of Care Network (QCN) evaluation
Learning about how to evaluate implementation-focused networks is important as they become more commonly used. This research evaluated the emergence, legitimacy and effectiveness of a multi-country Quality of Care Network (QCN) aiming to improve maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) outcomes. We examined the QCN global level, national and local level interfaces in four case study countries. This paper presents the evaluation team’s reflection…
Effectiveness of a multi-country implementation-focused network on quality of care: Delivery of interventions and processes for improved maternal, newborn and child health outcomes
The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (QCN) aims to work through learning, action, leadership and accountability. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of QCN in these four areas at the global level and in four QCN countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda. This mixed method evaluation comprised 2–4 iterative rounds of data collection between 2019–2022, involving stakeholder interviews, hospita…
Political science (34 works) · Economics (23 works) · Public relations (22 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Economic growth (21 works) · Health care (19 works) · Medicine (18 works) · Law (16 works) · Global Maternal and Child Health (15 works) · Business (13 works)